FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 34: The fact that environment has to a certain extent affected the religions of mankind is entirely overworked, when men like Buckle make it formative and controlling.]
[Footnote 35: Instead of the later and universal pessimism, there was in the Vedic religion a simple but joyous sense of life.]
[Footnote 36: Hinduism, p. 31.]
[Footnote 37: Chips from a German Workshop, vol. i., p. 15.]
[Footnote 38: Aryan Witness, p. 204; also Hinduism, p. 36.]
[Footnote 39: Ibid., p. 37.]
[Footnote 40: A son of Hariscandra. Hinduism, p. 37.]
[Footnote 41: This is in strong contrast with the Old Testament precepts, which everywhere had greater respect to the heart of the offerer than to the gifts.]
[Footnote 42: The Brahmans had found certain grades of population marked by color lines, shaded off from the negroid aborigines to the Dravidians, and from them to the more recent and nobler Aryans, and they were prompt also to seize upon a mere poetic and fanciful expression found in the Rig Veda, which seemed to give countenance to their fourfold caste distinction by representing one class as having sprung from the head of Brahma, another from the shoulders, the third from his thighs, and a fourth from his feet. Altogether they founded a social system which has been the wonder of the ages, and which has given to the Brahmans the prestige of celestial descent. The Kshatreych or soldier caste stands next, and as it has furnished many military leaders and monarchs who disputed the arrogant claims of the Brahmans, conflicts of the upper castes have not been infrequent.
The Vaishya, or farmer caste, has furnished the principal groundwork of many admixtures and subdivisions, until at the present time there are endless subcastes, to each of which a particular kind of employment is assigned. The Sudras are still the menials, but there are different grades of degradation even among them.]
[Footnote 43: Hindu Philosophy, Bose, p. 47.]
[Footnote 44: Indian Wisdom on the Brahmanas and Upanishads. Also Hindu Philosophy, Bose.]
[Footnote 45: Colebrook's Essays, foot-note, p. 85.]
[Footnote 46: See Introduction to the Sacred Books of the East, vol. i.]
[Footnote 47: Vaiseshika Philosophy, in Indian Wisdom.]
[Footnote 48: Mimansa Philosophy. Ibid.]
[Footnote 49: Sir Monier Williams assigns the Code of Manu in its present form to the sixth century B.C. Indian Wisdom, p. 215. Other Oriental scholars consider it older.]
[Footnote 50: These tendencies were more intensely emphasized in some of the later codes, which, however, were only variations of the greater one of Manu.]
[Footnote 51: See p. 82.]
[Footnote 52: Quoted on p. 76.]
[Footnote 53: See note, p. 80.]
[Footnote 54: Sir Monier Williams declares that some of Mann's precepts are worthy of Christianity. Indian Wisdom, p. 212.]
[Footnote 55: It should be set down to the credit of the Code of Manu that with all its relentless cruelty toward woman it nowhere gives countenance to the atrocious custom of widow-burning which soon afterward became an important factor in the Hindu system and desolated the homes of India for more than two thousand years.
There would seem to be some dispute as to whether or not widow-burning is sanctioned in the Rig Veda. Colebrooke, in his Essays (Vol. I., p, 135), quotes one or two passages which authorize the rite, but Sir Monier Williams (Indian Wisdom, p. 259, note) has shown that changes were made in this text at a much later day for the purpose of gaining Vedic authority for a cruel system, of which even so late a work as the Code of Manu makes no mention, and (page 205 Ibid.) he quotes another passage from the Rig Veda which directs a widow to ascend the pyre of her husband as a token of attachment, but to leave it before the burning is begun.]
[Footnote 56: As the spread of Buddhism had owed much to the political triumph of King Ashoka, so the revival of Hinduism was greatly indebted to the influence of a new dynasty about a century B.C.]
[Footnote 57: Indian Wisdom, p. 314.]
[Footnote 58: Ibid., p. 317.]
[Footnote 59: Brahmanism and Hinduism are often used interchangeably, but all confusion will be avoided by confining the former to that intense sacerdotalism which prevailed during the Brahmana period, while the latter is used more comprehensively, or is referred particularly to the later and fully developed system.]
[Footnote 60: Hinduism, pp. 12, 13.]
[Footnote 61: The Brahmans were careful, however, to brand the Buddha, while admitting him as an avatar. Their theory was that Vishnu appeared in Gautama for the purpose of deluding certain demons into despising the worship of the gods, and thus securing their destruction. This affords an incidental proof that Gautama was regarded as an atheist.—See Indian Wisdom, p. 335.]
[Footnote 62: See Aryan Witness, closing chapter; also Christ and
Other Masters, p. 198, notes 1, 2, and 3.]
[Footnote 63: See Brahmanism and Hinduism, Monier Williams.]
[Footnote 64: Hardwick traces similarities between Hindu traditions and Christianity in such points as these: 1, The primitive state of man; 2, his fall by transgression; 3, his punishment in the Deluge; 4, the rite of sacrifice; 5, the primitive hope of restoration.—Christ and Other Masters, p. 209.]
[Footnote 65: The Hindus hold that "truth was originally deposited with men, but gradually slumbered and was forgotten; the knowledge of it returns like a recollection."—Humboldt's Kosmos, ii., p. 112.]
[Footnote 66: Professor Wilson's Lectures, p. 52.]
[Footnote 67: Vishnu Puranas, p. 45, note 4.]
[Footnote 68: Buddhism is still more disheartening, since it denies the separate conscious existence of the ego. There cannot be divine fellowship, therefore, but only the current of thoughts and emotions like the continuous flame of a burning candle. Not our souls will survive, but our Karma.]
[Footnote 69: Christ and Other Masters, p. 182.]
[Footnote 70: Yet in spite of Manu and the inveteracy of old custom, there gleams here and there in Hindu literature and history a bright ideal of woman's character and rank; while the Ramayana has its model Sita, the Mahabharata, i., 3028, has this peerless sketch:
"A wife is half the man, his truest friend;
A loving wife is a perpetual spring
Of virtue, pleasure, wealth; a faithful wife
Is his best aid in seeking heavenly bliss;
A sweetly-speaking wife is a companion
In solitude; a father in advice;
A mother in all seasons of distress;
A rest in passing through life's wilderness."
This, however, is a pathetic outburst: the tyranny of the ages remains.]
[Footnote 71: Even in the later development of the doctrine of faith
(Bakti) Hinduism fails to connect with it any moral purification or
elevation. See quotations from Elphinstone and Wilson in Christ and
Other Masters, p. 234.]
[Footnote 72: See a recent Catechism published by the Arya Somaj.]
[Footnote 73: The following hymn, quoted from the Arya Catechism, reveals the proud spirit of revived Aryanism:
"We are the sons of brave Aryas of yore,
Those sages in learning, those heroes in war.
They were the lights of great nations before,
And shone in that darkness like morning's bright star,
A beacon of warning, a herald from far.
Have we forgotten our Rama and Arjun,
Yudistar or Bishma or Drona the Wise?
Are not we sons of the mighty Duryodani?
Where did Shankar and great Dayananda arise?
'In India, in India!' the echo replies.
Ours the glory of giving the world
Its science, religion, its poetry and art.
We were the first of the men who unfurled
The banner of freedom on earth's every part,
Brought tidings of peace and of love to each heart.">[